Two Western Journalists Killed in Syria Shelling - The New York Times The New York Times Middle East |Two Western Journalists Killed in Syria Shelling Search Continue reading the main story Photo Marie Colvin, left, an American reporter working for The Sunday Times of London, and Rémi Ochlik, a French photographer, were killed in Syria on Wednesday. Credit Left, Sunday Times; right, Julien De Rosa CAIRO — Syrian security forces shelled the central city of Homs on Wednesday, the 19th day of a bombardment that activists say has claimed the lives of hundreds of trapped civilians in one of the deadliest campaigns in nearly a year of violent repression by the government of President Bashar al-Assad . Among the scores of people that activist groups reported killed by rockets and bombs through the day, two were Western journalists, the veteran American war correspondent Marie Colvin, who had been working for The Sunday Times of London, and a young French photographer, Rémi Ochlik. The two had been working in a makeshift media center that was destroyed in the assault, raising suspicions that Syrian security forces might have identified its location by tracing satellite signals. Experts say that such tracking is possible with sophisticated equipment.

Activists, civilian journalists and foreign correspondents who have snuck into Syria have infuriated the authorities and foiled the government’s efforts to control the coverage of clashes, which have claimed thousands of Syrian lives in the last year and which Mr. Assad portrays as caused by an armed insurgency. Quoting a witness reached from neighboring Jordan, Reuters said the two journalists died after shells hit the house in which they were staying and a rocket hit them when they were trying to escape. Continue reading the main story Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corporation and the owner of The Sunday Times, saluted Ms. Colvin as “one of the most outstanding foreign correspondents of her generation,” and said in an e-mail to the paper’s staff she “was a victim of a shell attack by the Syrian Army on a building that had been turned into an impromptu press center by the rebels. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “Our photographer, Paul Conroy, was with her and is believed to have been injured,” he said. “We are doing all we can in the face of shelling and sniper fire to get him to safety and to recover Marie’s body.” Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain paid tribute to Ms.

Colvin on Wednesday, saying her death was a reminder of the perils facing reporters covering “dreadful events” in Syria. A longtime war correspondent, she lost an eye covering the Sri Lankan civil war and wore a distinctive black eye patch. Video posted online showed what appeared to be the foreign journalists’ bodies lying face down in rubble. Three other Western journalists were injured in the attack, activists said. The French prime minister, François Fillon, identified one as Edith Bouvier, a 31-year-old freelancer for the daily newspaper, Le Figaro. Video on YouTube showed her and Mr. Conroy, an Irish freelance photographer who had been working with Ms. Colvin, lying in what appeared to be a makeshift clinic with bandages on their legs. Photo Marie Colvin appeared in "Bearing Witness," an A&E documentary on women in war zones. Credit A&E IndieFilms Reuters quoted a member of the advocacy group Avaaz as saying that Ms. Bouvier’s condition was precarious. “There is a high risk she will bleed to death without urgent medical attention,” the advocate said.

“We are desperately trying to get her out, doing all we can in extremely perilous circumstances.” A day earlier, a well-known video blogger in the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Baba Amr, Rami el-Sayed, was killed. Other citizen journalists in Homs have been killed recently in what activists interpret as part of a deliberate campaign to choke off news of the opposition. The Syrian authorities rarely grant visas for foreign reporters to enter the country and seek to control those who are given permission to do so. Those controls have combined to make the Syrian revolt difficult to observe firsthand and reporters who do so run great risks of being caught in fighting, often in isolated pockets of rebel resistance. Last week, Anthony Shadid , a correspondent for The New York Times, died of an apparent asthma attack in Syria on Thursday after spending nearly a week reporting covertly in the northern area of Idlib, near the Turkish border. On Wednesday, another activist group said that 27 young men had been killed the day before in that area.

Reuters cited a statement from the Syrian Network for Human Rights as saying that most of the men, who were civilians, had been shot in the head or chest on Tuesday in several villages: Idita, Iblin and Balshon in Idlib province near the border with Turkey. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “Military forces chased civilians in these villages, arrested them and killed them without hesitation,” Reuters quoted the organization said in a statement. “They concentrated on male youths and whoever did not manage to escape was to be killed.” Overall, the United Nations stopped tallying the death toll in the 11-month uprising after it passed 5,400 in January, because it could no longer verify the numbers. Efforts by the Arab League and United Nations to stem the violence have so far had little traction, with Syria’s remaining allies — China, Iran and Russia — continuing to stand by it. But the latest deaths of journalists, on top of the agonizing civilian toll, focused a new wave of international revulsion and anger on Mr. Assad and the Syria government. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said the killings showed that “enough is enough, this regime must go.

There is no reason why Syrians should not have the right to live their lives, to freely choose their destiny.” Photo The French photographer Rémi Ochlik in Paris in 2005. Credit Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The French foreign minister, Alain Juppé also said in a statement that he had called on the Syrian government to order an immediate halt to the attacks on Homs and to respect its “humanitarian obligations.” He also said he was asking the French ambassador in Damascus to urge the Syrian authorities to open a secure access route into Homs to help victims of the bombardment with the support of the Red Cross. Last Wednesday, the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, discussed the mounting violence with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, agreeing that the crisis must be resolved without foreign interference, the Kremlin announced on its Web site. The two called for an immediate ceasefire and the initiation of dialogue between the government and opposition without preconditions. The statement said that the two leaders agreed that “the main task now, including for international organizations, particularly the United Nations, is to avert a civil war that could destabilize the entire region.

Along these lines it is important to mobilize the efforts of all who are interested in ending the bloodshed and confrontation, and returning peace and stability to Syria.” Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy Mr. Medvedev also emphasized the inadmissibility of foreign intervention in Syria with Iraq’s president, Nuri al-Maliki. The United Nations’ top relief coordinator, Valerie Amos, plans to visit Syria shortly to negotiate access for aid workers in the most devastated areas, the United Nations said, according to Reuters. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been trying to secure a brief cease-fire from the government in order to deliver food and medicine to trapped civilians, but so far, no agreement has been announced. According to his Web site , Mr. Ochlik, in his late 20s, had covered wars and upheaval in Haiti, Congo and the Middle East. Ms. Colvin, 55, was a veteran of many conflicts from the Middle East to Chechnya and from the Balkans to Iraq and Sri Lanka. Both had won awards for their work.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story Jon Snow, an anchor for Channel 4 News in Britain, which interviewed Ms. Colvin from Homs on Tuesday evening, called her “the most courageous journalist I ever knew and a wonderful reporter and writer.” She was also interviewed by the BBC , recounting how she had watched a child die in Homs. “ I watched a little baby die today,” she said. “Absolutely horrific, just a 2-year-old.” Video TimesCast | Journalists Killed in Syria The Lede’s Robert Mackey discusses the final dispatches from Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik, two journalists killed in Homs, Syria. By Emily B. Hager on Publish Date February 22, 2012. . Watch in Times Video » embed In an article published on Feb. 19 in The Sunday Times, Ms. Colvin described how she entered Homs “on a smugglers’ route, which I promised not to reveal, climbing over walls in the dark and slipping into muddy trenches.” “Arriving in the darkened city in the early hours, I was met by a welcoming party keen for foreign journalists to reveal the city’s plight to the world,” she wrote.

“So desperate were they that they bundled me into an open truck and drove at speed with the headlights on, everyone standing in the back shouting Allahu akbar — God is the greatest. Inevitably, the Syrian army opened fire. “When everyone had calmed down I was driven in a small car, its lights off, along dark empty streets, the danger palpable. As we passed an open stretch of road, a Syrian Army unit fired on the car again with machine guns and launched a rocket-propelled grenade. “The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one.” Ms. Colvin left Beirut, Lebanon, for Syria on Feb. 14, according to Neil MacFarquhar , a New York Times correspondent she dined with the night before her departure. Over dinner, she said: “I cannot remember any story where the security situation was potentially this bad, except maybe Chechnya.” “Before I was apprehensive, but now I’m restless,” Mr. MacFarquhar recalled her saying, once details of her journey had been finalized.

“I just want to get in there and get it over with and get out.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Ms. Colvin was raised on Long Island but had been based in England for many years. In a speech in 2010, Britain’s Press Association news agency reported, she spoke of the work of combat reporters, saying, “Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice.” “We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?” She added: “Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price.” Other journalists who have been killed in Syria include a freelance cameraman, Ferzat Jarban, who was found dead in early November. Another freelance cameraman, Basil al-Sayed, died at the end of December. A French television reporter, Gilles Jacquier, died in January during a government-sponsored trip to Homs, and Mazhar Tayyara, a freelance reporter for Agence France-Presse, The Guardian and other publications, died in Homs in early February. Rod Nordland reported from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from London.

Reporting was contributed by Neil MacFarquhar and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon, Fares Akram from Gaza; John F. Burns from London; Steven Erlanger, Maïa de la Baume and Scott Sayare from Paris; and Ellen Barry from Moscow. In Syria, fourth journalist killed in past week - Committee to Protect Journalists Committee to Protect Journalists Text Size Print Share New York, February 27, 2012--A Syrian videographer who documented unrest in the besieged city of Homs was killed in a mortar attack on Friday, according to news reports . Anas al-Tarsha is the fourth media fatality in Syria in the past week. Homs has been shelled daily for three weeks, with hundreds killed and thousands injured, according to news reports. Al-Tarsha, 17, was filming the bombardment in Qarabees, a district in Homs under heavy attack, when a mortar shell fell and killed him instantly, news reports said . Al-Tarsha regularly filmed clashes and military movements, and posted the videos on YouTube, news reports said.

The videographer, also known as "Anas al-Homsi," had been interviewed by Arabic broadcasters for information about fatalities and attacks on the city. His footage also appeared on the sites of citizen news organizations, according to news reports. "At extraordinary risk, Syrians such as Anas al-Tarsha have picked up their cameras to document for the rest of the world the devastation caused by the government's ongoing attacks," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. "Syrian authorities have done everything they can to shut down news coverage of their actions. Anas al-Tarsha and other local videographers have given their lives to ensure that the Syrian government would not succeed." After the Syrian uprisings began last year, the government sought to impose a blackout on news coverage by controlling local media and expelling or denying entry to international journalists, CPJ research shows. International media have begun to rely heavily on footage shot by citizen journalists such as al-Tarsha. In all, eight journalists have been killed in Syria in the last four months, CPJ research shows . On Wednesday, two international journalists, Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik , were killed in the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs.

A day earlier, another Syrian videographer, Rami al-Sayed , was killed in the same area. More on Marie Colvin's family sues Syria over death in Homs - BBC News BBC News Marie Colvin's family sues Syria over death in Homs By Paul Wood BBC Middle East correspondent 10 July 2016 From the section US & Canada Related Topics Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Marie Colvin died shortly after doing a series of live broadcasts from Syria The family of Marie Colvin, the American journalist who died in Syria four years ago, is suing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Relatives say they have evidence that she was murdered as part of a policy of deliberately killing journalists. The wrongful death lawsuit was filed at a district court in Washington DC. Colvin was reporting from the rebel-held area of Baba Amr, in Homs, in February 2012, when she was killed by government artillery. Shortly before, she did live broadcasts for the BBC, Channel Four and CNN. "I watched a little baby die today," she said, talking over pictures of a child who had been hit by a sniper bullet.

"That is happening over and over and over." Colvin, the celebrated correspondent for the Sunday Times in London, told the BBC that President Assad's forces were "shelling with impunity, with merciless disregard for civilians". She told CNN it was "a complete and utter lie that they're only going after terrorists… The Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians". Image copyright Reuters Image caption French photographer Remi Ochlik was also killed in the shelling in February 2012 The Colvin family believes that the satellite phone used in these broadcasts was traced by Syrian intelligence and used to locate the Baba Amr media centre, where she was based. According to documents obtained by their lawyers, a government informant then confirmed the location. An attack on the journalists was ordered that night, the lawsuit says. "The transmissions were intercepted, and they were tracked to their GPS co-ordinates," said one of the legal team, Scott Gilmore. "On top of that there was a whole web of informants who were already out searching for the journalists. Any journalist in Homs… could have been a target".

Marie's photographer, Paul Conroy, had told the BBC shortly after the attack that the incoming rounds were "bracketed" on the media centre, meaning they were being deliberately targeted. Conroy had served in an artillery regiment in the British Army. "As an artilleryman, I think that was a good day's work for a for a well-trained team. Nothing smacked of randomness in that situation," he said. Now the family's lawyers say they have witnesses and documents smuggled out of Syria to prove this. 'We know killers' The lawsuit is the fruit of four years of research by the US-based Center for Justice and Accountability. The documents are said to show that the artillery strike was approved or ordered by President Assad's brother Maher, commander of the Republican Guards. Media captionCat Colvin explaining why she's suing the Syrian government over the death of her sister Marie The policy of targeting journalists is alleged to have been made by senior officials in the Central Crisis Management Cell, President Assad's war cabinet. "I'm really proud to be able to bring this lawsuit," said Marie Colvin's sister, Cat. "We know who Marie's killers are now; we want them brought to justice.

I want them to be held accountable." She went on: "I'm very sensitive to the suffering of the Syrian people. I know I'm not the only one who's lost a sister and my mom is not the only one who is mourning the loss of a daughter. "I'm in a unique position to be able to use the court to be able be bring Marie's killers to justice. I want to give a voice to the Syrian people. I want them to know we haven't forgotten them." At the scene - Baba Amr media centre before the attack that killed Marie Colvin The shelling in Baba Amr was the most intense any of us in the BBC team had ever seen. The Syrians there were all wondering if this would be another Hama - the town destroyed by the old President Assad's artillery in 1982. Some 10,000-20,000 people were killed - there is still no accurate estimate - but not a single image was published of the carnage. In the age of the cameraphone and YouTube, that was not going to happen in Baba Amr. But - we believed - the regime still feared what effect the presence of international journalists would have.

"We could destroy Baba Amr in 10 minutes, if there were no cameras," a regime official is supposed to have said, according to documents and witness statements obtained by the Colvin family's lawyers. The lawsuit says Marie was deliberately murdered according to orders given by some of the most senior officials in the Syrian regime. One of those who helped carry out the attack is said to have been rewarded by the Assad family with the gift of a car. These are allegations, yet to be tested in court. But the murder of journalists is just one war crime among many of which the regime stands accused. The Colvin family hopes the lawsuit will be a reminder of that - as some in the international community seek to rehabilitate President Assad. Family of US journalist to sue Syria over her death | Newstalk Family of US journalist to sue Syria over her death Marie Colvin was killed in February 2012 while covering the seige of Homs.

Marie Colvin in 2008 | Joel Ryan / PA Archive/Press Association Images 9:30 10 Jul 2016 Elaine Power 09:30 Sunday 10 July 2016 The family of an American journalist is suing the Syrian government over her death. Marie Colvin was working for The Sunday Times when she travelled to Syria in February 2012 to cover the seige of Homs. At the time, the Syrian city was under rebel control and civilians were suffering badly due to tactics used by Syrian president Bashar al Assad. Her relatives say they have evidence that she was "hunted down" as part of a policy of deliberately killing journalists. The lawsuit has been filed in US District Court on behalf of of Ms Colvin's sister Cathleen Colvin and other family members. Lawyer for the case Scott Gilmore said: "Marie Colvin was killed for exposing the Assad regime's slaughter of innocent civilians to the world. "The regime wanted to wage a war without witness against democratic opposition.

To do that, they needed to neutralise the media." The day before her death Ms Colvin had told CNN that it was a "complete and utter lie" that the Syrian army were only targeting terrorists. She has said they were "simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians". In a report to the Sunday Times she had explained the effect the shellings were having on the people of Homs. French photographer Remi Ochlik who also died in the attack | Julien de Rosa / AP/Press Association Images On February 21st, an informant's tip led Syrian military intelligence to her location and the following morning, Syrian artillery fired on the building, killing her and French photographer Remi Ochlik. British photographer Paul Conroy and Syrian interpreter Wael al Omar suffered injuries in the attack.

Director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, who filed the case on her relatives behalf said: "This is the first war crimes case against the Assad regime - but it won't be the last." Dixon Osburn added: "Building a lasting peace in Syria will require accountability for those on all sides of the conflict who are responsible for atrocities." The lawsuit is filed under a federal law allowing victims to sue designated state sponsors of terrorism for the murder of US citizens. Ms Colvin, a 25-year veteran of war coverage, and Mr Ochlik are among more than 200 journalists killed in Syria since March 2011. Additional reporting by IRN Syria: Marie Colvin among journalists killed in Homs – Wednesday 22 February | World news | theguardian.com Syria: Marie Colvin among journalists killed in Homs – Wednesday 22 February • Two journalists die in Homs shelling, others injured • Last day of Mubarak's trial in Egypt • Nine reported dead in Yemen election violence Read the latest summary House in the city of Homs, Syria.

Photograph: Reuters 4.58pm: Here is a summary of developments on a day that was dominated by the news of the death of two foreign journalists in Homs. They were among 80 people reportedly killed in the city today. Syria • Two foreign journalists – Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times and French photographer Rémi Ochlik – died in Homs this morning when a building being used as a makeshift press centre was shelled. Several other journalists are said to have been injured. • Tributes have been pouring in, including from Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation, which is the ultimate owner of the Sunday Times, and fellow journalists, including the BBC's Jeremy Bowen, Channel 4's Lindsey Hilsum and ITN's international editor Bill Neely. • The UK foreign secretary also paid tribute to the pair and condemned "the Assad regime's despicable campaign of terror". France stepped up its criticism of the French regime, with President Nicolas Sarkozy saying "That's enough now, the regime must go." • Activists said 80 people were killed in Babr Amr today, including Colvin and Ochlik.

More than 60 bodies, both rebel fighters and civilians, were recovered from one area after an afternoon bombardment, adding to 21 killed earlier in the day, they said. The campaign group Avaaz said seven unarmed activists, including one doctor, were assassinated in cold blood while trying to bring medical supplies into Homs. The reports of activists cannot be independently verified. • Rami al-Sayed, a Syrian citizen journalist who provided live video streams from Homs, has also been killed. He was hit during the shelling of Bab Amr yesterday and died some hours later. His videos – more than 800 of them – were posted under the name "syriapioneer". • The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) says it is coming to the view that military intervention in Syria is the only solution. "We are really close to seeing this military intervention as the only solution. There are two evils, military intervention or protracted civil war," Basma Kodmani, a senior SNC official, told a press conference in Paris. But Damascus-based opposition group "Building the Syrian State" said military intervention would divide the Syrian people. It called for dialogue with the regime during a transitional period in which power would be share.

Yemen • Turnout for yesterday's one-candidate presidential poll in Yemen hit an average of 60% across the country, according to a monitor quoted by AFP, though it was lower in the south. Egypt • The verdict - and sentence if there is a guilty verdict - in the trial of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will be delivered on June 2, the judge said today. . He is charged with charged with ordering the killing of protesters in the uprising that swept him from power and also with corruption. 4.40pm: Shakeeb Al-Jabri, a Syrian activist based in Lebanon, has paid tribute to citizen journalist Rami al-Sayyad , who was killed in Homs: Rami al-Sayyed had been known as Rami Abou Maryam and Syria Pioneer. He volunteered his time in Baba Amr as an undercover citizen journalist. He was one of the first activists who risked their lives and braved sniper bullets to film the protests in Homs. Rami also set up a channel to livestream the anti-regime demonstrations and the army's assaults on the city.

Rami never admitted he was the one behind the channel but whenever his colleagues told me he is "out" or "busy" I was sure to find a live feed on his channel. Interviews with Rami were often too close for comfort. Sounds of gunfire and explosions are common background noise on calls with activists in Homs (and elsewhere in Syria) but on calls with Rami I often heard shells whizzing by. On my last call with him he was speaking from an activist hide out. He went there to upload videos of a family that had been buried in the rubble of a collapsed building. All members were dead. "We plead to humanitarian organizations to provide safe passage for the women and children. Leave us men to our fate. But for the sake of humanity let these women and kids go far from here." I didn't know what to tell him. The humanitarian organizations are fully aware of the situation. They will not send aid workers as long as bullets were flying. I thanked Rami for taking the time to talk to me and hung up. When I woke up today I found a live feed from Bab Amro. It was Syria Pioneer's channel and it showed the army's brutal shelling of Homs into the eighteenth day.

The feed stopped broadcasting at around 11:00 (local). Later in the evening I called another activist in Baba Amr as Rami was not online. The activist relayed to me the sad news that Rami was critically wounded by shrapnel and that he was receiving treatment in the field hospital. A few hours later Rami passed way. A video posted online ( warning: graphic ) shows doctors trying to save Sayyed's life. 4.27pm: France has stepped up criticism of the Assad regime following the killing of French photojournalist Rémi Ochlik and Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said: "That's enough now, the regime must go." Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the attacks show the "increasingly intolerable repression" by Syrian forces.

French Communication Minister Frederic Mitterrand said of the deaths: "It's abominable." 4.18pm: More than 80 people have been killed in Babr Amr today, according to the latest Reuters report , citing activists: The barrages marked an intensification of a nearly three-week offensive to crush resistance in Homs, one of the focal points of a nationwide uprising against Assad's 11-year rule and its ferocity has caused international outrage. More than 60 bodies, both rebel fighters and civilians, were recovered from one area of Homs' Babo Amro neighbourhood after an afternoon bombardment, adding to 21 killed earlier in the day, activists said. "Helicopters flew reconnaissance overhead then the bombardment started," Homs activist Abu Abei told Reuters ... "President Assad wants to finish the Homs situation by Sunday to prepare for the constitutional referendum. Then he will turn to Idlib," a Lebanese official who is close to the Syrian government told Reuters in Beirut.

Photograph: Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images 4.10pm: Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah (pictured left) has told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that any dialogue about the crisis engulfing Syria is futile, in the wake of Russia's veto of a UN security council resolution. According to the Saudi state news agency SPA, the Saudi monarch said during a telephone conversation with Medvedev: As for now, any discussion about the situation (in Syria) would be fruitless ... It would have been better if our Russian friends coordinated with the Arabs before using the veto in the security council ... We cannot abandon our religious and moral position towards the situation in Syria. It is unclear what alternative - if any - Abdullah is proposing. Russia has called for dialogue between the two sides in Syria but the opposition says it cannot negotiate with the regime as things stand. The most high profile opposition group (if not necessarily the most representative), the Syrian National Council, has said it is close to seeing military intervention as "the only solution". 3.45pm: The campaign group Avaaz claims seven activists were killed today while trying to take medical supplies into Homs today.

Executive director Ricken Patel said: Seven unarmed activists, including one doctor, were assassinated in cold blood today while trying to bring medical supplies into Homs. They join the roll call of brave citizens, medical workers and journalists murdered by a regime that has gone beyond all limits of brutality. An urgent humanitarian ceasefire must be imposed in Homs and other cities now so that medical supplies can be brought in. This must be at the top of the Tunisia agenda when they meet on Friday. According to Avaaz citizen journalists, there is now: • Only one field hospital in Baba Amr and there are not enough doctors or nurses to help the wounded. Doctors are exhausted, after 19 days of non-stop emergencies. • A chronic lack of medicines, scissors are having to be used to operate on people, flames to sterilise their tools and there is a lack of painkillers and antibiotics in the city. • In some locations only a vet is available to assist people and in one other place a builder with two weeks first aid training is assisting people. • Ambulances cannot move in Baba Amr and the wounded are not allowed to leave.

3.17pm: A video (above) purporting to show shelling in the Baba Amr district of Homs today has been posted on Youtube . Like the livestream, it has been posted under the account of citizen journalist Rami al-Sayed (aka "syriapioneer"), who was killed in Homs on Tuesday . The Local Co-ordination Committees activist group says 20 people have been killed in Homs today , including Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik. It says another 10 people have been killed across the rest of Syria: five in Hama, two in Idlib, and one in each of Deraa and Aleppo. In Aleppo, the man who was killed is named as Naser al-Dean Brhek, described as a Kurdish leader. 3.04pm: Marie Colvin's last report for the Sunday Times has now been moved outside the paywall. She writes : I entered Homs on a smugglers' route, which I promised not to reveal, climbing over walls in the dark and slipping into muddy trenches. Arriving in the darkened city in the early hours, I was met by a welcoming party keen for foreign journalists to reveal the city's plight to the world.

So desperate were they that they bundled me into an open truck and drove at speed with the headlights on, everyone standing in the back shouting "Allahu akbar" — God is the greatest. Inevitably, the Syrian army opened fire. When everyone had calmed down I was driven in a small car, its lights off, along dark empty streets, the danger palpable. As we passed an open stretch of road, a Syrian army unit fired on the car again with machineguns and launched a rocket-propelled grenade. We sped into a row of abandoned buildings for cover. The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one. 2.54pm: The video above is said to show a demonstration today outside the main library of Aleppo university in Syria. Aleppo has been relatively quiet until recently. Yesterday, security forces reportedly opened fire inside the campus while confronting a protest by about 2,500 students at the science faculty. 2.37pm: Impressive.

Less than 24 hours after citizen journalist Rami al-Sayed (aka "syriapioneer") was killed in Homs , his friends have resumed the video live-streaming (above). 2.29pm: The last day of ex-president Mubarak's seven-month trial in Egypt seems to turning into an anticlimax. Asked if he wanted to say anything to the court, Mubarak told the judge: "I have no comment. What the lawyer said is enough." AP reports that Mubarak's defence team claims he is still president, and thus can only be tried for treason or in a special court. The prosecution is asking for the death sentence and the judge is expected to decide later in the session on a date for the verdict. Meanwhile, a report from parliament to the court suggests the ailing ex-president could be moved from International Medical Center, where he is currently held, to the hospital in Tora prison. The report says the prison hospital has the necessary facilties to treat him. 2.16pm: While the Syrian National Council says that it is coming to the view that military intervention in Syria " is the only solution ", that is far from a universal view amongst the opposition.

Members of the "Building the Syrian State" group who are based in Syria but visiting Europe to drum up support for the opposition movement within Syria (and to show that there is political opposition movement within the country), gave a very different message at a meeting hosted by by the Council of Arab and British Understanding (Caabu) in London today. Mouna Ghanem, ex-regional director for the United Nation Fund for Women (Unifem), said: I don't think military intervention will help protect civilians in the country. It might create divisions in Syrian society. If there is military intervention some of the people will fight with the coming soldiers and others will be fighting against this and this would put the country in a very dangerous situation. Louay Hussein, who spent seven years in prison between 1984 and 1991 and is president of the opposition group, described Britain's approach to the crisis as "rational", comparing it favourably to France, suggesting he finds Nicolas Sarkozy's approach too belligerent. He said the answer lay in dialogue between the opposition and the current regime during an interim period in which they would share power and said the international community should be focusing on bringing the two sides together.

Hussein said that he had not participated in the government's "national dialogue" because it didn't represent a genuine dialogue. "The solution we accept is not just a dialogue but negotiations for a transitional period during which we share power." He said that that Assad could be involved in this process if necessary. "It's not going to stop us negotiating with him if it will reach a solution. Unfortunately, solving the crisis still requires his will to solve it ... The question of whether Bashar al-Assad is involved or not is a question the parties who decide to negotiate will have to make". But Hussein confirmed the external impressions of an opposition that is fractured and lacking ideas: There is no serious sense that the regime is ready to, one, enter a political process, and, two, the regime is near collapse. We need the Syrian opposition to be a bit more brave, to come up with solutions and we need the same from the international community ... Unfortunately, the relationships between different opposition groups are not very good and very encouraging. Regardless of the reasons why, the opposition is weak. The reality is that the Syrian opposition is unable to lead this historic moment and come up with particular solutions at this very important time in Syria.

The best relations we have are with independent groups you don't hear a lot about in the media, not the SNC, they are small civil society and political initiatives. 2.02pm: The authorities in Damascus say they did not know that Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik were in Syria, al-Jazeera reports . "The authorities had no information that the two journalists had entered Syrian territory," information minister Adnan Mahmoud told AFP news agency. 1.27pm: Lindsey Hilsum of Channel 4 News said she has lost a dear friend and the world has lost a rare breed of "old-fashioned eye-witness" reporters. A tearful Hilsum said she spoke to Colvin just yesterday and she had told her privately that Homs "was the worst we've ever seen" in all her years reporting from the frontline and she cared passionately about getting that communicated to the rest of the world. "To see what she saw and remember she lost on eye in a conflict in Sri Lanka. For her to say this is the worst she has ever seen... "I think what was exceptional about Marie was that she was so incredibly brave and went to places that most of the rest of us wouldn't go to and stayed longer than us.

"She was that old-fashioned kind of journalist who would to be an eyewitness, not an 'in-and-out, firefighter'. There are not many people who do that and you just have to look at her last dispatch this weekend to see the quality of the reporting, the compassion, the anger and also the objectivity." In her final dispatch for the Sunday Times, Colvin spoke of the citizens of Hom living "in fear of a massacre". She wrote of residents begging her to tell the world to help them and to get the bombing stopped. "The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one." Hilsum said: "Marie felt very strongly about the importance of reporting, but it didn't blind her to the faults and weaknesses [of activists]. She had an incredible ability not to take sides and there aren't a lot of journalists around like that." Asked what impact her reporting had, Hilsum said: "None of us ever really know what impact our journalism has. Marie didn't have any illusions about that. She felt reporting was important in itself.

She would say she wanted to to do it so 'nobody can say we didn't know what was happening in Homs'. Hilsum described Colvin as the "most utterly brilliant" person to know who gave others courage and had an incredible zest for life when back in London. She always looked glamorous back at home, dressing in a black cocktail dress and a special eye-patch with rhinestones for dinner parties. "She was an amazing character." "She just got on with it. She really cared about situations. I really felt that when I spoke to her yesterday". 1.15pm: The Guardian's Syria interactive has been updated to show where the two journalists were killed. U.S. and French journalists killed in Syria | Reuters Wed Feb 22, 2012 | 12:53 PM EST U.S. and French journalists killed in Syria By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Erika Solomon | AMMAN/BEIRUT AMMAN/BEIRUT American correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday when rockets fired by government forces hit the house they were staying in, opposition activists and witnesses said.

At least two other journalists and possibly more were wounded in the attack, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said. One of the wounded was named as British photographer Paul Conroy, the other as Edith Bouvier of France's Le Figaro newspaper. She was said to be in serious condition. A witness contacted by Reuters from Amman said shells hit the house in the opposition-held Baba Amro district of Homs which was being used as a media centre. A rocket hit them when they tried to escape. Colvin and Ochlik were both prize-winning veterans of wars in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere. The British-based Colvin, who worked for the Sunday Times, lost an eye when she suffered a shrapnel wound while working in Sri Lanka in 2001. In public appearances after that attack, she wore a black eye patch. Among her awards was a Martha Gelhorn Prize in 2009 for distinguished work over many years Ochlik was born in France in 1983 and first covered conflict in Haiti at the age of 20. Most recently he photographed the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

He won first prize for general news in this year's World Press Photo awards for a photo of a rebel fighter in Libya and ran his own agency, IP3 Press. In Paris, Reporters Without Borders said Bouvier working as a freelancer for Le Figaro newspaper. Video broadcast from Homs showed the bodies among the rubble. "We don't know if the building was deliberately targeted... we urge Syrian authorities to stop bombing Homs, said its Middle East director, Soazig Dollet. Activist Abu Thaer said four journalists were wounded. They were being treated in a makeshift hospital but there was nothing that could be done for them and they needed to be urgently evacuated. "There is hardly any medical equipment or medicine to treat people," he said on Skype. SUSTAINED BOMBARDMENTS The Syrian conflict is especially dangerous for journalists to cover as opposition and rebel forces are for the most part bottled up in enclaves which can only be reached by hazardous journeys. A Syrian photographer, Rami al-Sayed, died on Tuesday because there was nothing to treat him with, Abu Thaer said. The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders have also documented the deaths of at least other four Syrian journalists.

Syria banned almost all foreign journalists from the start of the uprising March 2011, but has started issuing short-term visas for a limited number of journalists, who are allowed to move around accompanied by government minders. Gilles Jacquier, of the French TV station France 2, was killed in January while on a government-authorized reporting visit to Homs. Last week New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid died of an asthma attack while returning to Turkey from an opposition zone. Pro-opposition areas of Homs have been under a sustained bombardment from government forces since February 3. Several hundred people have been killed, activists say. YouTube video from Homs activist Khalied Abu Salah, showed him standing in the rubble next to the bodies of Colvin and Ochlik, on the floor of a grey concrete hallway scarred with bullet marks and cracks from the blasts. "These are the bodies of the American journalist Marie Colvin and this is the French journalist Remi Ochlik. They are martyrs of the random shelling on the neighborhood of Baba Amro ...

There are others injured, among them the journalist Edith who works for Le Figaro." He raises his fist defiantly and calls for urgent aid to treat the wounded in Baba Amro. "I am sending a message to the European Union to move immediately. The blood of your own has mixed with Syrian blood. You need to move now," he shouts. (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Erika Solomon; Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Alison Williams) ADVERTISEMENT / Originally published on July 10, 2016 8:13 am Four years ago, veteran war correspondent Marie Colvin, an American reporter for a British newspaper, was killed in Syria. Now her family has filed a lawsuit alleging that high-ranking Syrian officials deliberately killed the award-winning reporter. Colvin, 56, died in shelling after reporting from Homs, a city held by rebels and under attack from government forces. The young French photographer Rémi Ochlik was also killed. The two had been working in a makeshift media center in Baba Amr, the district of Homs under the heaviest shelling. Two other Western journalists were wounded, but survived, as more than 10 rockets destroyed the media center.

The lawsuit alleges Colvin was "assassinated by Syrian government agents as she reported on the suffering of civilians." Lawyers say it's the first U.S. case brought against the Syrian regime over its conduct in the 5-years-running civil war. "It's extremely important that we get the full story," says Scott Gilmore, an attorney with the Center for Justice and Accountability, a U.S.-based human rights group that filed the suit on Saturday in a Washington, D.C. federal district court on behalf of Colvin's family. "It's been a question that has been on everyone's mind ever since Feb. 22, 2012," he says. "How did it happen and why did it happen? Who was responsible?" Colvin was an intrepid war reporter with decades of experience in every major conflict zone in the world. She was known for her personal style and a signature black patch over her left eye, lost in a harrowing grenade attack in Sri Lanka in 2001. Smuggled into Syria with photographer Paul Conroy in February 2012, Colvin broadcast live TV reports at the media center for the BBC, CNN, and the British broadcaster Channel 4.

Her powerful accounts of besieged civilians, starving women and wounded children undermined government attempts to control the coverage of clashes. Thousands of civilians were trapped in the neighborhood of Baba Amr along with rebel fighters. Syrian media activists uploaded daily videos of civilian suffering, which the government could dismiss. But a high-profile Western war correspondent raised the profile of the conflict and undermined government claims that Syrian civilians were dying at the hands of an armed insurgency. In Colvin's final broadcast for CNN , she challenged the Syrian government's claims that the army was only shelling insurgents. "It's a complete and utter lie they're only going after terrorists," Colvin told Anderson Cooper. "The Syrian Army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians." The CJA case alleges that Syrian officials tracked Colvin's location through a web of informants and electronic surveillance. On the night of her final broadcast, Gilmore says, Syrian intelligence officials intercepted broadcast signals to get Colvin's coordinates. "It was a match with the informant. They launched the attack the following morning." Gilmore, the lead investigator, has worked on the case for four years, tracking down eyewitnesses to build the case.

He says his witness list includes media activists as well as government and military defectors, and "testimonies of observers and participants," many of whom are now out of Syria. At the time of Colvin's death, Syrian authorities insisted they were not aware she had entered the country. Syria's information minister Adnan Mahmud urged "all foreign journalists who entered Syria illegally to report to the nearest immigration office to legalize their presence." A Perfect Storm of Jurisdiction The CJA lawsuit is the first case seeking to hold the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad responsible for war crimes. "It is a jurisdictional perfect storm," says Gilmore. In most cases, a sovereign government is immune from prosecution in a U.S. court. But a notable exception is "when a designated state sponsor of terrorism has murdered a U.S. citizen," according to Gilmore. The lawsuit was filed under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a federal law that permits victims to sue designated state sponsors of terrorism. There are three countries the State Department currently lists: Syria, Sudan and Iran. Syrian officials have not yet responded to the Colvin case. The Syrian Arab Republic has been named as the defendant in the complaint.

If the Syrian government chooses not to respond, then the D.C. federal judge will conduct a default hearing. Gilmore says he wants a public hearing of the evidence he's amassed. "The regime wanted to wage a war without witness against the democratic opposition. To do that, they needed to neutralize the media," he says. He intends to prove the case in court. Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit Journalist Colvin 'responsible' for own death, says Syria's Assad Journalist Colvin 'responsible' for own death, says Syria's Assad Share View photos US journalist Marie Colvin was killed by Syrian rocket fire in February 2012 while reporting in the city of Homs (AFP Photo/) More Damascus (AFP) - A US reporter killed in alleged Syrian government bombardment of a rebel district in 2012 was "responsible" for her own death, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview released Thursday.

Speaking to NBC News in Damascus, Assad said Marie Colvin bore responsibility for her death in the Baba Amr district of Syria's third city Homs because she had entered the country illegally and worked with "terrorists." "It's a war and she came illegally to Syria. She worked with the terrorists, and because she came illegally, she's been responsible of everything that befall on her," Assad said, speaking in English. Asked if she was responsible for her own death, Assad replied "of course," though he denied that his forces had targeted her. "The army forces didn't know that Marie Colvin existed somewhere," he said. "Nobody knows if she was killed by a missile or which missile or where did the missile come from or how. "No one has any evidence. This is just allegations," he said, adding that "hundreds" of journalists had been to Syria "legally and illegally." "Why to single out this person in order to kill her? There is no reason," he said. His comments come days after relatives of the longtime war correspondent filed a lawsuit in a US court alleging Assad's regime targeted her to stop her covering government atrocities.

The suit, based on information from captured government documents as well as defectors, claims the Syrian military intercepted Colvin's communications and unleashed a barrage of rocket fire on her location, killing her and French photographer Remi Ochlik. British photographer Paul Conroy, French reporter Edith Bouvier and Syrian media activist Wael al-Omar were wounded in the same attack. The suit says senior Assad regime officials conspired "to surveil, target and ultimately kill civilian journalists in order to silence local and international media as part of its effort to crush political opposition." Colvin, who was 56, covered many of the world's bloodiest conflicts from the 1980s onwards. She was working for the British newspaper The Sunday Times. Reblog Marie Colvin killed in Syria | Media | The Guardian Marie Colvin killed in Syria Marie Colvin: killed in Homs. Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty Images Wednesday 22 February 2012 05.43 EST First published on Wednesday 22 February 2012 05.43 EST Close This article is 4 years old Marie Colvin , the award-winning Sunday Times journalist, has been killed in Syria.

It is reported that she died alongside a French photographer in Homs when a house they were staying was shelled. News agencies say she and the photographer, Remi Ochlik, another veteran war correspondent, were killed by a rocket as they tried to make their escape. Three other foreign journalists were also reportedly wounded, including Paul Conroy, a British photographer who was working with Colvin. A French reporter with Le Figaro, Edith Bouvier, was injured. The third, a female American journalist who has not been named, was said to be "in a very serious condition." They were all apparently inside a makeshift media centre set up by anti-regime activists in the Baba Amr district that took a direct hit from a shell. Colvin, who has worn a trademark black eye patch since losing an eye after being hit by shrapnel on assignment in Sri Lanka in 2001, was regarded as Britain's foremost front-line war reporter. In a BBC broadcast yesterday, she described the bloodshed as "absolutely sickening". She said: "I watched a little baby die today. Absolutely horrific.

There is just shells, rockets and tank fire pouring into civilian areas of this city and it is just unrelenting." In a report published in the Sunday Times over the weekend, Colvin wrote of the citizens of Homs "waiting for a massacre". She wrote: "The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one... "On the lips of everyone was the question: 'Why have we been abandoned by the world?'" She was in a pro-opposition area of Homs that has been under sustained bombardment from government forces since 3 February, causing the deaths of several hundred people. The Sunday Times's editor, John Witherow, issued a statement in which he spoke of Colvin as "an extraordinary figure in the life of the Sunday Times" who was "driven by a passion to cover wars in the belief that what she did mattered. "She believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice... "Throughout her long career she took risks to fulfil this goal, including being badly injured in Sri Lanka. Nothing seemed to deter her. "But she was much more than a war reporter.

She was a woman with a tremendous joie de vivre, full of humour and mischief and surrounded by a large circle of friends, all of whom feared the consequences of her bravery." Rupert Murdoch also paid tribute to Colvin, describing her as "one of the most outstanding foreign correspondents of her generation." He said that often put her life in danger "because she was driven by a determination that the misdeeds of tyrants and the suffering of the victims should not go unreported." In 2010, Colvin spoke about the dangers of reporting on war zones at a Fleet Street ceremony honouring fallen journalists. She said: "Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers, children Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice. We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado? Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price." Colvin twice won the British press award as the best foreign correspondent.

Among her other awards were one for courage in journalism by the International Women's Media Foundation and the Foreign Press Association's journalist of the year award. She wrote and produced the BBC documentary Arafat: Behind the Myth and presented a documentary on Martha Gellhorn, the war correspondent renowned for her coverage of the Spanish civil war. Ochlik, 28, had been covering conflicts for eight years, firstly in Haiti, and most recently the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. He won a world press photo award for his Libyan work. French television reporter Gilles Jacquier was killed in Homs last month as a shell exploded amid a group of journalists covering protests in the city on a visit organised by the Syrian authorities. Sources: Reuters/AFP/AP/Sunday Times

Question: Which journalist was killed in Syria in February 2012?
Answer: MARIE COLVIN